Equal Signs.

This was originally written in October of 2009, so the tattoo that it refers to is now well over 2 years old now - but my feelings about it remain unchanged. 
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Cooler weather means warmer clothes; clothes that cover up my shoulders and bundle up my arms in cozy sweaters and long, protective jackets. I love fall and winter clothing, and I wear scarves even when it is hardly cold enough to justify them. But the delights of fall fashion have developed one particular drawback – I am not as aware of and connected to that equal sign seared into my back, that has been there for almost a year now.

The other morning I stood with a mirror in my hand just to observe it for a minute or two, and run my fingers over it again. I had a nightmare last week that somehow it had been damaged, had been taken away from me. Not even a full year and already it seems a part of myself I couldn’t bear to part with. Taking time to meditate on its perpetual presence immediately calms me, gives me a sense of stability, a reminder of who I am and what is important to me.

I’ll never forget the weekend when I finally got that tattoo. My sister and I had plotted it after the depressing passing of Prop 8, and the moment her brilliance thought it up I instantly knew it was the right thing to do. When it came time to do the deed, I felt a surprising sense of calm. Part of me had been expecting to feel fear, doubt; that when I would finally get right down to it, something would tell me “no.” But this never happened. And I didn’t even need someone to hold my hand – my sister was out getting money from an ATM. The tattoo artist called me over, I sat down, and without any ripple of doubt I got that beautiful equal sign etched into my back. The moment did not so much reveal itself as intense, tinted with religious fervor; it was just obvious, that this was the right thing for me to do. I had always wanted some relatively small, meaningful tattoo - something to represent an idea that I could trust not to lose my devotion to as the decades went by. But I could never think of anything before. And from the moment Michelle suggested it to the moment it was complete, I knew that this, this was the one thing I could count on to always have faith in.

Because the equal sign on the back of my shoulder is not just about gay rights, or the freedom to marry. It is about the idea of pluralism, of democracy and freedom of thought. It is my testament to the belief that any idea which allocates human dignity unequally amongst human beings is wrong – and that every idea that furthers our appreciation of the endless diversity and startling creativity of mankind is a beautiful thing. The reason that I like to stop, every now and then, and look calmly at my equal sign is not only because it reminds me of who I am, and who I want to be – but because it reminds me of who we all are.

More on the internet.

Following up on my post the other week about the impact of technology on the human condition, Maureen Dowd has an excellent column up about the empathy-destroying powers of the internet. She quotes Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains*:

“Researchers say that we need to be quiet and attentive if we want to tap into our deeper emotions. ... If we’re constantly interrupted and distracted, we kind of short-circuit our empathy. If you dampen empathy and you encourage the immediate expression of whatever is in your mind, you get a lot of nastiness that wouldn’t have occurred before.”

This is exactly what Wallace and Franzen talk about.** And untangling what is going on here is very important, I think; I'm quite disturbed by the sheer amount of cruelty people on the internet seem to delight in directing at each other. I'm always wondering, what are these people like in their every day lives? If I could confront them, and ask them point blank, in an honest desire to know -- dude, what the fuck?, what would they say? What is their level of consciousness about how mean and awful they are being? To what extent do they behave like this in real life, to actual people they see around them? Undoubtedly there are a lot of bitter, nasty people out there that the internet simply brings out the best in, so to speak. But then it seems the internet is also a lot like road rage -- for some people, being locked into this virtual world pushes the off button on a lot of suppressed ugliness that has not been fully dealt with. Or so it would appear.

Anyway, here is Wallace discussing another aspect of the same issue, particularly relevant from 2:10 on:

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* I noticed Dowd does not italicize the title of the book in her article (but rather quotes it), although I checked, and indeed it is a book - is this something else the internet has done? Has the distinction between how to present an article or blog post title and how to present a book title also been obliterated?, and now I am merely being a fusty, quaint academic by insisting on the distinction?

** I know I keep bringing up Wallace and Franzen, and I look a little stuck on them. That is because I am. No point in denying that. I'll probably blog in the near future more extensively as to why I am so drawn to them at the moment.

American sadness.

For the past few years, I have become increasingly aware of sadness – particularly American sadness. Above all else American sadness is a sadness which is shunned and ignored by the popular culture; its sufferers are asked to keep quiet and lay low, and by and large they do. This sadness comes in many forms – depression, anxiety, the agony of being gay in a largely straight world, or black in a white one. Much of this sadness could not be avoided by any society – it exists as part of the human condition. But in America, it is made even all the more alienating by both cultural and economic oppression. 

Even those who do not have to worry about where their next paycheck is coming from – or whether it will be enough to cover the rent – experience the stifling smothering that the broader culture tries to perform on the reality of sadness. American life is full of stories of successful, affluent bourgeoisie who can find no reason to get up in the morning. Recently I have been reading Homeward Bound for the sections I am teaching this quarter. While most of the young couples Elaine Tyler May researched indicated that they had no regrets about getting married young and settling down, the doubts and uncertainties that do come through speak to dreams never believed possible, to a feeling of being trapped and lonely. This could be difficult enough for those who really were happiest being stay at home housewives or corporate breadwinners, but what about those who simply saw no other option? Who knows how many gay and lesbian Americans struggled under such conditions, who knows how many women who never wanted to have children – this one in particular I identify with – ended up having their entire youth consumed with child care?

For the economically oppressed things are even worse. American society tells us, after all, to measure our worth by our income – if we are coping both with fundamental sadness and a feeling of worthlessness, the burden becomes heavy to bear indeed. I heard a social scientist once describe those on the absolute bottom of this ladder, the homeless, as “radically vulnerable.” For such Americans, invisibility is the preferable fate – preferable, that is, to the type of scorn and rejection they are likely to face whenever they actually do succeed in attracting the attention of their countrymen.